Fact of the day

Information is the most powerful weapon.

Monday

Fact N°
1609

Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was "Moon."

The second man to walk on the moon (a fact, he tells the New York Times, that didn't bother him), Buzz Aldrin was indeed born to a woman whose maiden name was, appropriately enough, Moon. According to a piece in GQ by Sean Wilsey, Aldrin's reputation as a player during his NASA days earned him the nickname "Dr. Rendezvous"; shortly after he touched down from Apollo XI, Wilsey claims the married Aldrin used his NASA-issued T-38 supersonic jet to fly from Houston to New York to hook up with a girlfriend.

Tuesday

Fact N°
1610

In one California city, for every live resident there are 1,000 dead ones.

Colma, just south of San Francisco, was founded to be a necropolis in 1924 after San Francisco authorities evicted most of the city's cemeteries because of rising land values. Today, Colma has 17 cemeteries; three-quarters of the city's 2.2 square miles are zoned for the dead and buried, which includes one pet cemetery. Estimates put the living population at around 1,500 and the dead at 1.5 million, a figure that includes numerous celebrities, such as Joe DiMaggio and Wyatt Earp.

Wednesday

Fact N°
1611

Solar eclipses occur because of a stroke of galactic and symmetrical good luck.

In a solar eclipse, the moon moves in front of the sun and blocks it out with seeming perfection, and it works this way by luck: the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, and it is also 400 times further away from Earth. The gorgeous consequence, as noted by Discover Magazine's LeeAundra Temescu, is that both the sun and the moon appear to be the same size in our sky. Without this symmetry, a total solar eclipse as we view it wouldn't be possible.

Thursday

Fact N°
1612

In MLB history, just 22 players have hit an "Ultimate Grand Slam."

In pro baseball, an "Ultimate Grand Slam" is a walk-off grand slam that gives the home team a 1-run victory. Roger Conner hit the first such grand slam in 1881 off Lee Richmond, and Jason Giambi hit the most recent one off Mike Trombley in 2002. Babe Ruth and Ron Lolich have hit the only ultimate grand slams in extra innings, and Roberto Clemente's 1956 ultimate grand slam is the only one that was also an inside-the-park homer.

Friday

Fact N°
1613

Contrary to what's seen on TV, defibrillating paddles don't restart a stopped heart.

We see on TV a person on who's flatlined, then the medical pros slam him with paddles from a defibrillator ("Clear!") and suddenly his heart starts up again. However, defibrillators don't work like that. They are used on a person having a heart attack (there are many ways to have a heart attack) in an effort to bring a heartbeat under control, i.e. slow it down or defibrillate it (stop it from twitching irregularly). The only way to restart a heart that has stopped beating is through certain drugs like epinephrine.

Saturday

Fact N°
1614

The term "spandex" is an anagram for a word that describes it.

Spandex (an anagram for "expands"), one of the most ubiquitous fibers in the clothing industry, is a synthetic fiber that was developed by Dupont researcher Joseph Shivers, who spent a decade in the '50s perfecting the fiber as a means of competing with rubber. The fiber can stretch from its normal size to 600% that size and return to its prior shape. It revolutionized women's wear in the 1960s, active wear for athletes like cyclists and dancers in the 1970s, and became central to the clothing trends of metal and pop music in the 1980s.

Sunday

Fact N°
1615

There's only one place you can go to visibly straddle world time and space.

England's Royal Observatory, Greenwich -- about 20 minutes outside London -- is home to Greenwich Mean Time, the Prime Meridian line, and to longitude 0Ã‚Â° 0' 0''. Midnight every night, as measured from the Prime Meridian line (also known as the Greenwich Meridian), is the official kick-off for each new day and year worldwide. Every place on the globe is measured east or west with regard to the Prime Meridian line, and in Greenwich you can literally stand over the line, which cleverly bisects some of the local architecture.